Author: artbychristinemallabandbrown

I'm an artist based at the Spode factory site in Stoke on Trent. I paint, draw and create digital art. Contact me at mallabandbrown@aol.com

Dawn chorus

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I came downstairs about an hour ago and the sweet, loud, melodious song of birds was filling the air. At this time of year in the spring it seems louder and more beautiful than ever. Fizzing through the air like ripe electricity. A great pleasure to listen to.

Then cutting through it the insistent alarm call, not of a blackbird, but a ruddy car alarm! The bird song quietened for about five minutes, a car engine started up in the street, and traffic noise commenced. But soaring high above it the melodies of a Blackbird and its mate have resumed. Liquid notes rising and falling in complicated trills… And that ruddy car alarm again!

Bottle oven / pizza oven….

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A replica bottle oven is growing on the grounds of Spode at the moment. It’s going to be a pizza oven at the hotel on the Spode site.

Around the other side of Spode near the Church Street side is the base of an original bottle oven which had been demolished years ago. There are very few real ovens still standing in the city. Many were knocked down or fell into disrepair over the years. Where hundreds once stood and smoke stained the city sky less than fifty are still standing and many of these are in danger of being lost to the history of the city, county, and country.

Even now buddleia and other shrubs are growing in between their bricks, pulling the ovens down in continued dereliction. Hopefully some can be conserved.

For those who don’t know bottle ovens are bottle shaped buildings containing a central kiln which the oven surrounds. Pottery was stacked inside the kiln and fired by stoking fires under the ovens with coal.

Cats and clutter

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I took these photos within minutes of each other. This is my painting chair where I prop up my canvases while painting at home. I’m between paintings at the moment so the cats often sit on it. The house is full of “stuff” that Mey or may not be used as subject matter. Hence this poem!

Cats and clutter, clutter and cats.

Do the two go together

Like mittens and bats?

Like bread and butter

Like lamb and spring

Grapes and wine

Cheese and bread?

We all live differently

Each to his own

Cats and clutter are in my home!

Sad face

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Digital drawing, done quickly after watching an art challenge programme on TV. I used ArtRage oils free app. Then I decided to write a poem to verbally illustrate it.

Sad Face

Eyes unfocused

Thinking of a sad place

Ready to weep,

Memories to keep

Warmly wrapped in love.

Sad face

Can you ever be

Happy again?

Lost in a reverie

Of memory

Sad face

Long face

Long may you seek

Peace.

Canal boats

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Pictures of the Trent and Mersy canal, these photos are by a friend. The painting is up in the warehouse next to the summit lock ,number 42 on the canal at Etruria.

Canal boats allow you to travel around the countryside without having to use a car except for going to your departure point and parking up. Canal cruises are usually circular so you travel around or along a route and return to your starting point. There are famous routes like the Cheshire ring which can be done over a few days. There are also hotel boats where you have a cabin but all the chores are done by a housekeeper.

There are apparently more canals in Birmingham in the English Midlands than there are in Venice.

Some canals and rivers run either side by side or into one another. The landscape can either be countryside, industrial or town buildings, it just depends where you travel. There is much more information available from the Canal and Rivers Trust.

Photos of Warhorse

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I wrote about going to see Warhorse last week, but I did a drawing because we were not allowed to take photos.

Then I found these photos on line. I think they are publicity shots which are allowed to be shared. If they suddenly disappear you will know why.

They just show the beauty and also horror of the play. Such strong sculptural images.

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Sculpted Steel

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Charis Jones is a blacksmith and sculptor who runs Sculpted Steel at the Etruria Forge in Etruria Stoke-on-Trent. She is based in the Forge and can be contacted to commission sculptural work. She created a large cat sculpture for our garden.

This weekend she was demonstrating her skills during a steaming weekend at The Etruria Industrial Museum. Home of Jessie Shirley’s bone and flint mill.

The beam engine that powers the flint grinding pans is steamed about once a month.

As with other places in the potteries this is one of those hidden gems that people don’t know about but which are fascinating to visit

Photos courtesy my friend Lorraine.

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Waiting room gallery

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If you go into Longport in the potteries (Stoke-on-Trent) and turn off the main road towards the station you will find a new artists led gallery.

The place only opened up this weekend but they have had lots of visitors and sales. There is art by a number of local fine artists for sale. I could not resist asking if I can place some work there and maybe hold an exhibition there.

The gallery is across the road from a shop called cherished chimneys which sells ornamental chimney pots, there was also a sign for a teapot exhibition on another building, and the station building at Longport is also being used as a gallery.

Despite losing City if Culture for 2021 I think artists in the area are proving just what a cultural, artistic city we are.

Plastic in my garden

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My partners been out putting seeds in the garden, pottering with plant pots and sitting in a chair in the sun.

Two magpies are trying to pull twigs off a buddlea Bush, they are building a raggadey nest in the top of one of the trees. They managed to break off 3 or 4 twigs while we watched.

It was so nice I decided to take a few photos. The first is the chair my partner was sitting in. He didn’t want his photo taken second is the cherry tree. With blossom buds about to burst. The third is another tree at the side of the garden, with a great big waving piece of white plastic in the top of it! I don’t know how it got there but I think it must have blown up in a storm. It doesn’t look like a plastic bag, maybe some plastic wrapping? Things are getting green. We need to wash plastic flower pots to reuse them, but I caught my partner burning perfectly good ones! Grr….